Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories Review
I've stated that I don't like this game. It's one of my least favorites that I've played, and yes this would be a video review, but my computer isn't powerful enough to capture video with FRAPS or obs. Not to mention that I don't have room on my hard drive for the entirety of footage for this game. I mean if you win every duel without losing as quickly as possible with no grinding then you could reasonably beat this game in under two hours. However, the average playthrough with all considered is about maybe 30 hours, possibly more. The game is, for the most part functional, but the design decisions are baffling in this type of game. We'll get to all of them as we go on. Let's start with the game's main mechanic. In Japan at least, this game was developed before the anime and as such it uses prototype rules of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game (or so I'm told at least. Not even the first season of the anime uses the rules of this game). First of all, your deck must contain 40 cards exactly, and no more than 3 copies of one card. So no more, no less. Whatever, that's fine. Most of the expert Yu-Gi-Oh players would recommend you only have 40 cards in your deck. That makes it so that it's more likely for you to draw the card that you'll need. Yeah... we'll get to that. There are two ways to win a duel: you reduce your opponent's life points to zero or you let them run out of cards to draw. Since you go first and both players can only play one card at a time, it sounds like that latter option is impossible. Well... A player is allowed to fuse two or more cards in their hand or on the field (without polymerization) to make a different, (presumably) more powerful card. You then draw as many cards as you used. Your opponent can do this, and you can do this. If you don't you will die. The fusion system is the meat of the game, and it's not explained very well. If you don't read the manuel, you'll only find out when you see your opponents do this. Even so, how fusions work can be confusing, so take good notes. Then throw those notes out because they were wrong. For example, if you fuse a machine with a warrior type it makes Cyber Soldier. Usually. When I fused my warrior with the machine Blast Juggler, it became Charubin the Fire Knight, a weaker monster than Cyber Soldier, which got defeated in the next round. This is because the game counted its attribute (fire) before its type (machine). However, when I fused it with a beast, it counted its type before its attribute and gave the stronger of two options. Beyond that even, there's not only types and attributes, but species like animal or elf, and gender. This, unfortunately seems to hamper the variety of the game. First of all, you're going to dump cards of types that don't fuse with much like insect, aqua, or fiend. Cards have no effect in this game, so there's no point in keeping Man-Eater Bug over Jurai Gumo. Instead you're going to make a deck revolving around the Twin-headed Thunder Dragon, the strongest card you can fuse for on type alone (you can make Meteor B. Dragon by fusing the specific cards Red Eyes Black Dragon and Meteor Dragon). To make a Twin-headed Thunder Dragon you fuse a dragon card with a machine, a plant, a rock, a zombie, a thunder, an aqua, or Time Wizard. Then you fuse it with another thunder. You're also going to be very fond of warrior cards, since they can fuse with almost anything, including the machine, plant, aqua, and zombie as seen above. This is the strategy you're going to use for quite some time. Hopefully you started with an equip card that helps dragons. When you start the game you are given essentially random cards. This is actually (apparently) based on what name you put in. So if you put in "Konami" you get better cards. Because the game hates me, it started me off with the Magical Labyrinth equip card. According to the description, it's only useable with one other card in the game. But the descriptions of the cards are often wrong. Laser Cannon Armor's description says that it's for insects, but it also works on machines. Either way, I'd recommend constantly restarting until you get Rageiki. It's the better alternative to Dark Hole and it takes a tremendous amount of stress off of the player later on. Dark Hole destroys every card on the field, and since you can only play one card per turn... your opponent has a free hit. The only time I've ever used Dark Hole is late in the game when enemies are packing cards above 3500 Attack. Yeah... this game is difficult. Well, fake difficult anyway. First of all, if you lose any duel in the main campeign, it's game over. Even just for fun ones with your friends. Actually, I take that back. There's one duel where you have to lose. Funnily enough it's the first mandatory duel in the game. It's understandable when you're in Kaiba's tournament or facing Heishen's minions that apparently kill you when you lose, but with your friends? What, is the Pharoah (the character you play as) so pompous that if he even loses one duel he thinks his reputation is so shattered he can never show his face in town again? There are only two modes for the enemy AI in this game: easy as shit or hard as fuck. For the first portion of the game when you're in Ancient Egypt, if you've gotten the mechanics of the game down you're probably going to do fine. The enemies won't fuse, don't use spell or trap cards, and generally don't have any monsters over 1100 attack. The only exception is Seto, who can definitely be a challenge for the first time player. You'll only lose if you get unlucky, which can easily happen. It seems that you never get the card that you need to make good fusions in the heat of things and the mechanics of the game don't allow for much coherent strategy except for beaten down. This all changes until you get to Kaiba's tournament. You might beat Rex Raptor the first time, but chances are you will not beat Weevil on your first try. Also, for some reason those two do not have many cards of their theme. I know that it's a small thing, but there are many weak and mediocre insect and dinosaur cards in this game, especially because none of them have any effects. For you to beat Weevil you're going to have to grind. The other (and I'm not kidding here) 20 to 80 hours of the game is spent on grinding opponents you've previously beaten. Once you beat Weevil, you're going to need to grind to beat Mai, and then you're going to need to grind to beat Bandit Keith. Then you're going to get a long and pointless cutscene, and then you'll duel Shadi who you don't have to grind for. For whatever reason, Shadi is probably the easiest opponent in the game. It may be because it's the battle right after a marathon cutscene and the developers didn't think to put the save point AFTER it. If you lose to Shadi, you get to watch the whole cutscene over again as punishment. Also, there's nothing more frustrating grinding for 5 hours and losing with your new deck. Speaking of that, you might not get a single new card you can use in that time span. You see, when you battle an opponent you get between one and five star chips and a card. I don't know what gives you the most star chips. I can beat an opponent in three turns without taking damage. Sometimes I get an S-Rank (5 chips), other times I get an A-Rank (4 chips). One time I had a monster attack a monster that was stronger than it like a dumbass and when I finished, I had gotten an S-rank. As for the card? The best you can hope for in the first half of the game is probably Dragon Zombie (given by villager 3). Other than that you'll get 10 copies of Dancing Elf, which you can't use. The only other way to get cards is this game's most infamous feature: the password system. Star chips are used to buy cards once you've inputed the password, and you can only get one of each. Some of them cost 999,999 star chips. No, I'm not kidding. These are generally the cards that can't be won by anyone in the game, including the two legs of Exodia. Well, all pieces of Exodia cost that much, but no one drops Exodia's legs. I repeat, you can only win 5 chips a duel. To get one of these cards, it would take you 200,000 flawless duels. This is 3,333 hours of non-stop playing (assuming that each duel only lasts one minute. Which it won't). This is 139 straight days. Which cards are in here are... odd. Sure, there's the ones that are significant in the anime like Blue-Eyes White Dragon or the Dark Magician. But I don't think Magician of Faith ever had anything to do with the anime. It makes me think that at one point they were planning on putting in card effects, which would explain why Jurai Gumo, a card with no effect in this game, only costs 80 star chips (and yes, if you want to win, you buy Jurai Gumo). Then again, Monster Egg or Kattapiller don't have effects, and both of them cost 999,999 star chips. Yes, Kattapiller, an insect card with 250/300 is over 100,000 times more costly than Jurai Gumo, an insect card with 2200/100. If you're wondering, the highest card cost below the top is Megamorph, costing 50,000. I'd recommend buying both Labyrinth Wall and the Millenium Shield (both costing 200), Parrot Dragon (290), and Kaminari Attack (290). As I said, a lot of these cards are not obtainable in an international release. In the Japanese version, you're supposed to use the Pocket Station to get some of these cards. Since the Pocket Station never had a worldwide release, they removed its functionality in the international release of this game... and didn't lower the prices to compensate. After you've ground Simon Muran into a refreshing blue smoothie, Villager 3 into a raspberry blast, and Jono into a thick soup, you could probably make it to Pegasus. You know that phrase in the anime "you need to believe in the Heart of the Cards?" Here's what it means in the game. From now on your opponents will have things called "morph cards." They can become any other card in your opponents' deck, meaning that sometimes Pegasus has four Rageki's and sometimes he has two Meteor B. Dragons. Also, he has the ability of his millenium eye, meaning that he knows what your face down cards are. In a sane world or a good game, he'd be the hardest duel in the game. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't. It all depends on the draw of the cards. Specifically, your opponents'. Starting with Bakura, your opponents will usually bring out the Labyrinth Wall or Millenium Shield. They both have 3000 defense, and cannot be beaten by the Twin-headed Thunder Dragon without equips because they both have the uranus guardian star. Oh, I forgot to mention them. Basically, each card has two of them. If your guardian star is strong against an opponents' guardian star, you gain 500 attack and defense points, and vice-versa. Accidently chose the wrong guardian star? Then just equip the monster with an equip card it can't use and it'll let it choose again. Basically it turns Yu-Gi-Oh into Pokemon. Your opponent will always choose the first guardian star by the way, even if not doing so would allow them the win the duel. Yeah, the opponent AI has a lot of quirks like that. If your strongest monster and their strongest monster have an equal attack? They'll shift into defense, even if they're going to lose because of it. The only time they'll stay in attack is if their card has 3000 attack or more, which will never shift into defense. They got a Millenium Shield or Labyrinth Wall that you can't kill? Simply put a weak monster on the field, and they'll summon a monster to attack and destroy it. Then you can use your strong monster who can't get through the Shield or Wall to slowly chip away at their life points and win the duel. Then finally, there's the fact if you heavily equip a really weak monster, the opponent will see it as not having any of those equips and start attacking it, getting their own monsters destroyed. If you get lucky enough to beat Kaiba, you'll access the second half of the game. And yes, it is mostly luck. I won because he got a shit hand after beating me non-stop. It almost felt like the game let me win. In this second half of the game, you essentially have a "level select." There are five areas, each based on one of the types of field cards—water, meadow, mountain, wasteland, and forest. Each of these require two straight battles. If you leave the area to save because you got a good card after the first battle, you're going to need to face the first guy again. The game is delightful enough not to tell you this. Because the twin-headed thunder dragon is the strongest thing you've got you're going to try going to the ocean or the mountain first, and you're going to promptly get your ass pwned. What you want to do is beat the meadow low mage and leave, saving your game. You'll have to fight him again later, but that's not the point. For whatever reason, the low meadow mage gives the best cards in the game, frequently. Every so often he'll be giving you the usual crap with below 1000 attack that you're getting from everyone else, but he gives Dark Magicians, Skull Knights, Firewing Pegasuses, and Meteor B. Dragons, cards that he has no right to. He certainly doesn't use them in his deck. But this is who you'll be grinding against the rest of the game until you get at least three Meteor B. Dragons. He has a 20 in 2040 chance of dropping them, moreso than anyone else in the game. Why doesn't Heishen from the beginning of the game drop these cards? It would make sense. The only drop here that makes sense is Gaia the Fierce Knight, which should probably be given by the High Meadow Mage. It's like someone at Konami realized at the last minute "oh fuck, this game is too damn hard and tedious, let's give them someone who drops decent cards." Even with a souped up deck, the rest of the game isn't a cake-walk. The terrain gives cards of certain types a 500 point attack and defense boost. This means that the High Forest Mage's Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth has 4000 attack points, and he has equip cards. The Meteor B. Dragon has 3500 and an alignment that can equal it, only if he doesn't use an equip card. If you want to get an equip card for yourself to do, good luck. What you have to do is grind against someone... and make them deck out. This means you have to force the AI to fuse, and sometimes you might still be stuck with a Shadow Specter in the end. Even so, you still have to hope to draw a Meteor B. Dragon and one of those equip cards. The only areas that don't require this are the ocean and the wasteland. Those two are the easiest. The forest and mountain I'd call "moderate," and the meadow I'd call "hard." He has two Gate Guardians. Since they're boosted by meadow, they each have an attack of 4250. Two hits by those things and you're dead. Even the Meteor B. Dragon can't cut it on a meadow field. If you've gotten any spell cards at this point, chances are, they're the field cards. I'd recommend using them here. Just keep in mind that the mages are programmed to use a field card to their type... even if they have nothing on the field. This does make grinding a less tedious task, since you essentially have a free hit every time. Strangely enough though, they aren't morph cards. They need to draw these cards naturally. After you beat all five of those mages, it's time for the final showdown. One that will make the most ardent defenders of this game rage quit. You know that moment in a video game where after practicing for hours or days on end you finally beat the final boss. You're so happy and cheerful and ready to start bragging until you figure out that the boss has a second form and kicks your ass? That is probably my most hated video game trope and this game is probably the reason why. Even if you've grinded to the point where you have three Blue Eyes, three Meteor B. Dragons, the Thunder Dragons, the Megamorphs, the Bright Castles. Hell, if you've cheated in the Three Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragons, you're still screwed. And I'll tell you why. First of all, make this easy on yourself. After you've defeated two high mages (but not all of them) you can trigger an optional story tangent where you can duel the labyrinth mage and Seto once again. Seto is harder than any of the mages now, but it's worth it to knock the Labyrinth Mage out early. When you've beaten all of the mages, you're going to need to run through a gauntlet of ass-beatings to win. It starts with the Labyrinth mage, unless you've gotten rid of him. He's not hard perse, but this isn't a challenge of strength or skill, but one of luck. The more battles there are, the more likely your first seven cards are going to be unusuable equip cards while the opponent beats you down with the strongest monsters in the game. Raigeki or Dark Hole will not save you. They have multiple copies of everything. You're going through all of these bosses without any saving (and save states are cheating. I'm looking at you there). So take my advice and get the Labyrinth Mage out of the way early. Then there are Heishen's two minions: Sebek & Neku. They aren't hard. It's just the fact that you have to go through both of them without saving. Then you finally duel Heishen, the big bad this whole time. This is the most intense duel you've ever fought. Like Pegasus, he knows what cards you've got face-down and has many morph cards. I don't know why, since he has the millenium rod, not the millenium eye. So, when you've beaten him, the game lets you think that you've won. But guess what? Now you've got to fight Seto. AGAIN. And he's even stronger than Heishen. Because you got unlucky with your draws, he beats you and it's back to the beginning of this gauntlet. After five more times and possibly more grinding (for what, I don't know), and you finally beat him. You use the Millenium items to summon DarkNite... the game's real final boss. What the fuck? Same deal. Can see your cards, stronger cards, morph cards. You lose, try again, lose, wase time. Also, there are lengthy cutscenes that you need to watch each time you want to try again. And finally... against all odds, you beat DarkNite. And then the fucker challenges you again. I turned off the game. No, I'm not going through with this again. I don't care if I could "get lucky." And there are a few reasons why I didn't even bother trying. First of all, my patience were pushed to their fucking limits. They pulled this "not really the final boss" card three fucking times and I hate it when video games do it ONCE. It always leads a sour taste in mouth unless the first form was piss easy, which is why I could take Morrowind's use of this trope and could kind of forgive ActRaiser (although the boss rush was unwarranted). Second, it's the fact that I'm fighting the same guy twice, back-to-back. There are only two options here. Number one: his deck is exactly the same, in which case the game admits it's trying to waste my time by using the law of averages. Number two, his deck is different, despite the fact that the duel happens immediately after the first, in which case the game admits that it's fucking cheating. Beyond that though, the game has established that if you lose a duel, you are in submission—EVEN FOR THE BAD GUYS. If he did this, why didn't Heishen, or any of the mages for that matter? As far as I'm concerned, I beat this asshole. There's not much you get for "actually" beating the game anyway. You get a code for Duelists of the Roses, a game I do not own, and the ability to play New Game+ with the deck you currently have. This turns the game from frustrating to boring as you just curb-stomp everything in your sight. And that kind of sums this game up for me. If you're not losing a battle against a new opponents and getting frustrated, you're grinding old ones and being bored by them. I don't see much multiplayer capibility here either because certain cards are unarguably better than others, with no effects or tribute summoning conditions. Jurai Gumo is unarguably better than Basic Insect in this game. The winner of a multiplayer game is whoever has the most powerful cards (or best luck), not who has the best skill, unless you want to restrict yourself. The only restriction the game will allow is unbalanced life points... which doesn't help. One thing that I didn't mention was that each monster in the game, all 600 something of them, have 3D model. They have not aged very well. But if you press square instead of x you can see them actually battle. Unfortunately it takes too long to really be practical. It makes me wonder how much space they actually take up and if the game went for style over substance. I mean, if the game removed these they'd probably have time to add things like card effects. Or maybe some place I can sell the cards I don't need for star chips. I mean, you can't buy cards or sell them... in the designated card shop. While the game has some redeeming factors like the amazing soundtrack, there's just not much to be enjoyed here beyond nostalgia. It was the first Yu-Gi-Oh game released in America and probably the first a lot of people played. I don't think this game's rules are bad, but I do think they need tweaking. I hear there's actually a mod out there that makes it so the card drops make sense (the mountain mage is going to drop Meteor B. Dragon, not the meadow mage) and maybe makes the card prices make sense, but I don't think that that's enough. The enemy AI needs a significant improvement. It's really easy to trigger certain exploits, and how they play is indistinguishable from one another (beyond the all-seeing eye trick). With no card effects, there's no strategy involved. I'd be more apt to fusion summon cockroach knight—the weakest fusion in the game—if I could have his effect. Not to mention that something like man-eater bug could even the odds against the absurdly powerful Gate Guardians and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragons. Honestly, I enjoyed the game boy color game Dark Duel Stories, which used very similar mechanics. But it had tribute summons, and it had card effects, so there was strategy involved. And it's way of limiting your card selection was much easier to digest. But that's a different game. As for this one, I'd pick any other Yu-Gi-Oh game, even Falsebound Kingdom for the Gamecube. At least that one succeeded in what it tried to do. Category:Miscellaneous